BEST OF: Kids with Big Imaginations

20:56This is how you play. And he's sort of like, what are you talking about? She's like, this stick is the barber. And, you know, he has a drinking problem. And over here are the, you know, this is the church, but nobody goes there. And this is this. And she's explaining to her friend how all these like dirt and sticks and rocks is town and let's play town as I do every day. And her friend is sort of like, I don't really get this. And it's sort of a metaphor for what the whole book is going to be about, that her friends are growing up and she doesn't want to grow up. She wants to stay in this, you know, hyper creative place that she's in.

21:29And I do think that can happen as kids get older. Most kids stop doing this and some kids don't. Should we talk about the kids who kind of keep going with the creative stuff? So Joshua Krish wrote an article for Fatherly about why some kids are really, really imaginative. I'll put it up on our show page at whatfreshhealthpodcast.com. And you can also swipe or tap and whatever you're using to listen. And we'll put up all the links to what we're talking about. Anyway, he says that researchers say that only about 10 % of kids go into complex world building activities. They call it world play. Hmm.

22:07And this is Harriet the Spy Playing Town. Michelle Root Bernstein. So she does a deep dive on kids who are kind of, you know, older and still still doing this after all this time.

22:19Heidi Grant:I mean, I'm just still having the perspective that like, wow, there's a lot of people out there studying this. I'm impressed. Studying imagination. Yeah, exactly. So she says world play is the repeated evocation of a fully realized imaginary place, usually inhabited by imaginary Married beans. That's my daughter with the fairies in the marriage of Wishes. Yeah. And the difference between world play and make-believe, this is what Krish explains in this fatherly article, is scale. Like make-believe would be like if you just played town for a day and world play is when this is what you want to play every day.

22:53That's the fairy tree. Yeah, the fairy tree. And kids, as they get a little older, the kids who are really into world play will start with maps and languages and, you know, sort of backstories for the characters. One of my kids, our dog's name is Marshmallow, and he drew this map. Oh, Amy, how dare you? We all know Marshy. Everybody knows that. Please. And he wrote, he made a map, like a world map of Marshmallowlandia and everything was like, you know, islands and this was all named after her. And he drew a whole like geographic landscape that he still has up on his bulletin board. And that was, I mean, he's very creative.

23:34So that's where he went one day. I'm glad we're not talking about Marshmallowlandia all the time. But some kids do do this.

23:42Heidi Grant:But does this roll into like Dungeons and Dragons and that kind of stuff? I think it does. or sims or part of the idea that I think we need to sort of explore is this idea that like you're imaginative when you're a kid and then it needs to stop at some point right like there are some people who are they're really into these imagination things as grown-ups and we also I mean we use our imaginations all the time like we see a rainbow in the sky and we're like oh rainbow and we we imbue it with meaning but it doesn't really have right we're we still engage in these sometimes superstition, sometimes religions, fanciful, like we still do things that way.

24:20Heidi Grant:Right. And I think it's easy to demonize the side of the equation that is like the person trying to stop imaginativeness. But I sometimes find myself on that side of it, which is like, we don't want to talk about your magic wishing stone and the cloud that it's going to take us to 24 hours a day. It's not interesting to everybody else. So like, yes, you can have imagination, but as part of this family, you cannot dominate the conversation with this. My other kid obsessed with Marvel movies and his brother and he, I have had to pass a rule at the dining room table that like, we are not going to talk about Marvel movies and what happened in them and the Marvel universe every night at the dinner table, because it is not interesting to the rest of us.

25:04Heidi Grant:Like, we don't really want you to get lost in that world. We still want you to participate in our world. You know, I think I think that's I think that's right. The idea that kids have to learn that it's there are places for it and places not for it. And that can be painful. Like like Harriet the Spy. She she has a painful journey in that book to realize that the way she wants to do things is not how the world works. Right. And I mean, I think it's like when you look at like lore and legend, there's like the narcissus in the water and And the mirror in Harry Potter that you get lost looking into.

25:38Heidi Grant:Like, we do have this idea that, like, you don't want to go down literal Alice in Wonderland. Like, you don't actually want to spend your life down a rabbit hole, you know? Except that J.K. Rowling, if you want to be a hyper, hyper creative adult, I guess I'm coming out the wrong way. You can't make your kid into somebody who will be a hyper creative adult by, like, making them do this. You either have this sort of part of you or you don't. But the kids who do have this grow up to be hyper-creative. Like there are many examples. The Bronte sisters, I guess, used to sit around and pretend that there was a town or Oliver Sachs or Jack Kerouac.

26:19There are a lot of examples of these people being sort of living in their mind and creating these worlds. And then they grew up to be hyper-creative. I got to study for you.

26:27Heidi Grant:All right. Study me because I feel like we're a little, we're at a lost crossroads here. So in 2006, this is a study that Michelle Rue Bernstein did. She's the one who specifically researches the creation of imaginary worlds. So she studied MacArthur Fellows versus typical undergraduates. MacArthur Fellows is like people who get awards for being super creative. Yeah, they get the MacArthur Genius Grant. I should have looked up exactly what this is, but they give out maybe$2 ,000 a year. Just picture like Lin-Manuel Miranda got one, right? Lin-Manuel Miranda got a - Famous writers get them. MacArthur Grant.

27:02Heidi Grant:It's for people who are super creative. It's for people who are super creative, but not necessarily in the arts. I mean, some are in the arts and some are like entomologists in the Amazonian rainforest. You can be a scientist. You could be Elon Musk. I don't know. Like you're super creative in some way. Okay. And MacArthur Fellowship recipients were like 25 times more likely to have been like this as a kid than the typical undergraduate at this college to have said, oh yeah, I totally did this world play. I made maps for my fairy world. So, like I said, you can't make it happen, but there are good things.

27:41Heidi Grant:Right. So, it's an indicator, but it's not a cause. That study does not say, talk to your kids more about their fairy world. Right. And they also said, and she's careful to say that world play does not invariably lead to your kid being a genius as an adult, but it does indicate a flowering of their imagination that we don't have to worry about pushing back against, except to the extent that it's all they want to talk about. I think in that discomfort of like your friends, like why are you talking only about the magic wishing stone? Like that was fifth grade. Now we're talking about who likes who.

28:18Heidi Grant:Well, that is something that I argue vociferously for, which is letting your kid be a little bit nerdier and letting your kid not have a million friends in middle school is fine. Because I think some of this, and I fight this instinct a little bit myself sometimes, which is like, you know, when my kids are hurt and they're like, people call me weird and like, you know, I don't like it. And like someone called me a weirdo because I was talking about whatever my imaginary obsession was at the playground instead of the cool stuff that other kids were talking about. I try to encourage the like, that's okay.

28:58Heidi Grant:It's okay to be weird. I mean, I was a kid who believed in things that perhaps other kids had given up on into very late grades, you know, and it didn't exactly make me a winner in the game of middle school life. Let's just say that. and I look back and I'm like that's great like being on the cutting edge is not necessarily where you want to be in middle school like the smartest hippest most jaded kid in middle school like that's the kid who thrives socially often in middle school especially if you're not an athletic kid like athletic kids tend to thrive but like I don't have an athlete in the house So like that's out.

29:39Heidi Grant:And so letting your kids be a little bit, you know, behind the curve in terms of being hip and popular, giving up their imaginations. I would encourage you to have them do that. It's interesting. You were just saying that you don't have to be on the cutting edge in middle school. And the truth is you are on the cutting edge in middle school, right? Like Harriet the Spy is a total badass, but the rest of her friends are like, quit acting weird, start acting normal. It's like this sort of tamping down of what makes you creative and brilliant. Right, but that's your adult perspective, which I always have a problem with.

30:16Heidi Grant:Absolutely. Because when my kid's like crying and being like, everyone thinks I'm weird, I'm like, being weird is the best. But he does not have that perspective. And it's very important for me to remember that he will not have that perspective as a fourth grader when he's like, oh, my God, I drew this crazy dragon. and people are like, dragons are lame. We're into something else now. That experience is genuinely difficult for him. And I can't be like, you're actually the coolest kid ever. He doesn't see it that way. There's one other sort of slight downside to watch out for in kids who have highly developed imaginations.

30:49This was a correlation I had not really considered. Dr. Robin Alter, she studies kids with anxiety. And she has discovered that, she says, the children who come to see me for anxiety all typically share one common characteristic. These are children gifted with highly active and developed imaginations. Yeah. It's a chicken and egg thing for sure, right? Like they have their imaginative because they're anxious and they're considering possibilities all the time. Right.

31:20Heidi Grant:But they're anxious because they can imagine all of the different. If you think leprechauns are in the radiator, then maybe that makes you more anxious. I don't know. But I had never thought about that connection before. And yet it totally makes sense. Well, I think there's a connection, too, between intelligence and imagination. And there's a connection between intelligence and anxiety because you've thought of the possibilities while everyone else is like, do-do-do, I'm in third grade. You're like, guys, guys, listen to me, climate change or whatever. Like you, you're kind of seeing a bigger picture than some of the other kids.

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33:56okay so we have with us today uh nancy wilson my mom we're going to get to the bottom of my imaginary friends and what they were all about mom tell me what you remember about kathy and suzy i believe you were say two and a half to three and a half and you just suddenly started talking about these friends and how it would be is you would tell us like oh i went to the store with Kathy and Susie or Kathy and Susie came over. It would be your way of telling us a story of something that you had done or wished you had done, I guess. And they were your constant companions. And they were, it was always a pair.

34:38They were always together. Always. Yes. As we recall, you always mentioned the two names together. Yep. Was one of them a troublemaker? Did they have personalities or were they just sort of, Were they like just there for me? I couldn't remember, and dad couldn't either, any, you know, you're describing them as mischievous. It was just like they were your friends. They were the people that you did things with. Did I have friends or was it Kathy and Susie? You were our oldest child. You were the oldest cousin. You have many cousins, but you were the first. And even among our friends, you were the first child.

35:14and at the time that you started this, we were living in New Jersey. We really weren't around family except on weekends. But anyway, I think that you really kind of invented them just to be your companions. You had a little brother by that point, but he wasn't yet able to really communicate with you. He was not very useful to me. And where did Kathy and Susie, where did the names come from? Where did I pull those out of? You know, we've never been able to figure that out. I don't know whether it was maybe a story that we read to you or something like that, or you were an avid Sesame Street fan, so maybe it was children that you saw on Sesame Street.

35:53We've never really been able to figure that out. And I guess because you were so young, you weren't really able to describe them to us. We did talk to you about them, but you never really were able to give us a good description, other than they were your friends. Do you think that I knew that they were imaginary? Or do you think that I really on some level thought that they were real? You know, that's a good question. I'm not sure. You may have known they were imaginary. And yet, I think to your two to three year old mind, they seemed very real. Yeah, I guess when you're two and three, right? If there's fairies and Santa and everything, like, why not?

36:32Right there? It's all real. Everything's possible. Exactly. You know, I was trying to kind of figure out how it resolved. When you turned four, we moved, but you also started to preschool. And so then you did have, you know, real children that you could talk about and tell us what you were doing with them and all that kind of thing. But you always enjoyed playing with the Fisher-Price toys. And, of course, that was when they were like the little people, just those little teeny things, not very real looking at all. But, you know, you had the farm and the school and the house. And you did a very imaginative play with those and kind of directed your brother and some of his little friends.

37:15And you would have these scenarios going on and all this kind of interaction. And that, to me, seemed to be kind of how you played out your imaginary friend thing. Uh-huh. It led to creativity, as far as I was concerned, but a very creative spirit. Did any of your other children have imaginary friends? You know, Dad and I spoke about that last night because I was trying to recall. We could not think of it. We could not remember that they did. So, you know, as soon as you asked me the names, they came to me immediately. But I don't remember the others having them. Maybe because there were more around the house.

37:55Oh, yeah, there were other kids around. Well, the craziest thing about it all is that the only things that I remember or know today about Kathy and Susie are the things that you tell me. I have no recollection of this at all. And yet they were for a time my dearest friends. Yes. Well, as I say, it was you were quite young because we just figured, say, you know, you were able to speak well. So you were probably like two and a half. But then by the time you got to three and a half to four, they kind of went off into the sunset, I guess. Farewell, Kathy and Susie. Yes, they moved on to some other little girl's life.

38:36Heidi Grant:Something I think a lot about in this, which I think is a very helpful perspective, is I was reading a book about kids with like severe autism. And the idea is like maybe a kid with severe autism sits and like spins something all day. Like that's all they want to do, all they want to do. and the orientation was always like we have to stop getting him to spin the thing so that he will come join our world you know this exciting world that we have and so therefore like take away all the spinning things and of course all that resulted in was like an extremely anxious agitated yeah agitated child and the metaphor that the person used is like what if you're sitting in the park reading like uh catcher in the rye jd salinger and somebody walks up to you and slaps that book out of your hand.

39:25Heidi Grant:And it's like, J.D. Salinger's lame. We're going to go to the movies. And it's like, because you want that person to go to the movies with you. It's like, of course, that's not going to result in a successful interaction. And so that your orientation needs to be accessing that person so that the thing you want to do is sit down next to them for as long as it takes, days at a time, and read Franny and Zoe, another J.D. Salinger book. and that eventually like maybe that person looks at you and is like hey we're doing the same thing maybe there's a connection to be made here and that eventually the metaphor works to like you can then leave and be like hey let's go see them there's a movie that reminds me of these books let's go see it together that like that is the path to accessing people and I think there is something although it's about you know very unreachable people I think of that metaphor constantly in my own life.

40:21Heidi Grant:And I think if it was my imaginative child, who honestly, if I never talked about The Wishing Stone again, it would be too soon. I don't really want to do it. And she's a fairly easy to access child, so I don't really need it with her. But my kid, who is Marvel obsessed, is a little bit harder to access. And so to sit down with him and have a 45-minute conversation is very, very easy if I'm willing to talk about Marvel. And so, but I'm building from there. It's like, can we crawl out of that and talk about, you know, bigger things or other things happening in his day? Yes, we can. So, to start with Marvel, to join him in his imagination, like, that's why that story about your dad is so sweet.

41:08Heidi Grant:Like, it's such a bond for him to be like, come on, Amy and I drive it around the neighborhood looking for our imaginary friend. Like, it's adorable. It's kind of no different from how we understand now we're supposed to help people with Alzheimer's, right? Which isn't to say constantly, no, Uncle Joe isn't here. You know, it's... Your husband is dead, Marae. Like, oddly, that's not... That doesn't work great. You meet them where they are and you say, oh, okay, I think he'll be back in a little while. That kind of thing. Yeah, you meet people where they are. Or, I mean, there's a famous thing and now I think it's actually in use, but there's a town and, of course, like some progressive...

41:43Heidi Grant:Yeah, yeah, I've seen this. Like somewhere where they do everything right online, you know? And it's like for people with memory issues and stuff, because they found that like people would just get up like in the morning and be like, oh my God, I have to get to work. And they're like, yep, there you go. There's your briefcase. And it's just like a cardboard briefcase. It doesn't open. There's nothing in it. But they're like, here's your office. And like they would just literally go through the motions of going. And it's very soothing. And then you can talk. How are you feeling today? any aches or pains, like you can access the information you actually need from them if they are sitting at their office doing their work.

42:19Heidi Grant:Like they're going through the motion of what calms them. So Dr. Alter, she's the one who works with the anxious kids who are usually also very, very creative. It's one thing, like your daughter wants to talk about the magic wishing stone and she has no problem. Like it's awesome. And it's also working for her. It's not something that's keeping her awake at night, right? If you have a kid. Well, yeah, not yet. We'll see how it develops. Not until there's leprechauns in the radiator, then who knows? So if she has a kid who comes to her who's somewhat motivated to put some kind of, I don't know, some guardrails on their imagination, which has to come from the kid at some point.

42:56She teaches them first that their imagination is a great gift, that they've been gifted with this incredible flowering thing. But it has to have controls on it. And guess what? Just like you learn to ride a bike and you learn to steer and you learn to brake and now you're in control of the bike and it takes you where you want to go. You can control your imagination.

43:17Heidi Grant:This is a great, great conversation. Yeah. And then she gets into it like that. And then, and then of course there are breathing exercises and, you know, meditation exercises. There's a whole program she takes these kids through. But I really like that metaphor. Like you can be in charge of this. This would also work for a kid who has temper tantrums, right? Like you can be in control of this thing that feels like it's in control of you. And we're going to teach you how. Right. And I think I've done some thinking and looking about stuff like this. And there's something that happens with some kids where it's like someone's telling me what to do.

43:52Heidi Grant:And that's very scary for parents because they're like, oh, my God, my kid has a demon. They're possessed or whatever. but that it's actually a fairly classic manifestation for kids to be like, someone's telling me what to do. And I had a kid who would say kind of things like that. And it has become like, I can't help it. I'm what he's really trying to say is I feel out of control of this. And so one of the things that we've talked to him about is this metaphor of like, because he's a TV movie guy. When he's anxious, it's like, let's change the channel. Think about a channel changer. Think about a remote control where you're nervous and scared of like whatever.

44:36Heidi Grant:Of course, summer movies were in the phase of summer movies where the superhero movies, which like 10 year olds want to go to the previews are for like unbelievably terrifying movies. So like we took him to see some superhero movie and the preview was this like really scary shark movie where like this crazy gray white shark was like eating teenagers and stuff. And he's like, I'm so scared of the shark. And I'm like, you have to change the channel. And let's think of four other things you can change the channel to. And it's a really like concrete tool that says when you see the shark, you're going to change the channel to either this, this, this or this.

45:14That's great. And then he has a menu and he feels like he's in charge.

45:18Heidi Grant:Yeah. And I mean, listen, whenever we give this advice, it's not like, oh, and now he sleeps like a dream every night and we never hear another complaint. We do this every night. You know, we revisit it all the time. He freaks out from the beginning. And then I'm like, remember that you can da-da-da-da-da, change the channel, blah, blah. And if it's a kid who's really interested in imaginative worlds, then I guess you can place more of them in his or her path. Yeah. I mean, we've talked a lot about how to put the brakes on this and make it less true. But if it's sort of indubitably a good thing for your kid to be imaginative and creative, then there are also ways that we can help our kids be more imaginative.

45:59Okay. Should we talk about them? Sure. Sounds like some of our kids kind of got it and some of them...

46:04Heidi Grant:Need a little boost. I don't think I need any boosting around here, but okay. I'm willing to talk about it. open-ended materials, open-ended art materials and things like that to play with. Like the more our kids can play with clay and blocks and paper and crayons instead of building the Lego set that can only do one thing and then has to be put on a shelf and never touched again because it'll break. Yeah. And that's a little personality wise. Like I have a kid who's Lego, he's obsessed with Legos, but he wants to build the thing that looks like the thing. The joy that he gets from it is like box of crazy and I put it together step by step and end up with Hogwarts Castle.

46:43Heidi Grant:Like that's what he likes out of it. He's not as gifted at open ended imaginative play. And so we do some playing like that. But I can definitely see that like that's that's not his mindset. But he does get a lot of time outside. Your kids get tons of time outside. Yeah, they get a lot of unstructured time. But all I'm trying to say with this is like, if you have a kid who does not delight in imaginative play, it is going to be very hard for you to make him that kid. Yeah. Right. But leaning into the like, oh, fine, here's a screen every time. There's nothing to do is also the wrong thing to do.

47:19There's a professor. Her name is Amber Ankowski. And she says she's a child psychologist. And she says kids need their imaginations most when there is nothing else to do. So that's sort of one of our like top three things. let kids be bored because if they've never had to use their imaginations, if you're solving every problem for them, then they won't.

47:39Heidi Grant:Well, that is absolutely true. And even people with little kids, like nowadays, every toy is like, it's electronic. It beeps, it boops, it transforms into a spider and tickles them. Like kids do much. I guess that I'm sorry. I don't know where that came from. It's your imagination. I'm very imaginative. But this is a great tip that is like counterintuitive. So developmentally, toys that your kid brings all of the imagination to are much, much better than toys that are like, it beeps, it whirls, it does a dance. Like, let your kids play with things where they have to make stuff themselves. And then fiction, of course.

48:19Like, reading your kids' books, getting your kids to read. It is, the struggle is real, right? I have older kids, and they're supposed to be reading for school this summer. and when they can hold a little palm-sized computer in their hand, why would they read a book? But they do. It's like 10 pages a day. Come on, guys. And it helps fictional worlds. They help develop empathy, like we were saying on the episode about empathy, and it certainly helps them create imaginative capacity.

48:48Heidi Grant:And it helps them go places they don't normally go. Like my fifth grader, his school is always working on a fiction book. So they read it out loud together in class, one chapter, and then you're supposed to read it at home when they get home. It's like they double read it, basically. And the books have been kind of intense. Like one was about some Danish people escaping the Holocaust, and one was about a kid who lost her father. And like, they're kind of heavy. I'm like, whoa, here we go. but it we talked about this with Evangeline Lilly it says to your kid like I trust you with this information you're going to be ready to start handling this stuff and like I'm watching these superhero movies with my kid and they're pretty darn intense you know like kids are ready for tough stories and scary stories they need to start processing that stuff and the fiction is worth it like I feel like my kids are being asked to read these sort of serious non-fiction like one of my kids is reading about like somebody in a Russian jail.

49:50It's a memoir of like, I spent 30 years in a Russian jail. Like, really? Like, can you just read The Hunger Games? Like it has to, right. It's pretty serious.

49:59Heidi Grant:And I guess it's. Right. But when you say The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games is about teenagers murdering each other with arrows. Right. But it's like, oh my God. I mean, but talk about a microcosm that that author created and creative. And I'm not saying your eight-year-old should read it, but your 12-year-old should. And it's, I can't put it down. And it inspires creativity, I think. Yeah. Something I've been thinking about a lot lately in different contexts, but I think it really goes to this is, I was watching Beyonce's Homecoming. You didn't think that was going to come up in today's episode.

50:35Heidi Grant:That's not an old Deluxe Allure. Oh my God. I'm finally not making it a Deluxe Allure. I was watching Beyonce at Coachella, guys, because I'm hip. And then we were watching Project Runway for some reason. And what I took away from it is like, I feel like historically, homecoming with African American people, Project Runway primarily with gay people, the idea that like for decades, these people were kind of dismissed and like marginalized and watching the amazing art that comes from people when you're like, okay, go, you know, like nobody's mashing you down and being like this is not the way you're supposed to be in the world you're supposed to be you're supposed to only fit this crazy box and it both projects to me I looked at them and I was like these are the expressions of imaginations that historically you kind of haven't been able to see because they weren't welcome in the world and they both like beautiful, amazing, imaginative fashion and this like unbelievable music and expression of homecoming.

51:43Heidi Grant:It's like meeting people where they are and seeing the results of like their own expression and imagination is such an amazing gift. And it made me think of that when we were having this whole conversation. I guess if there's a takeaway, it's that it's not our job as the parent to tamp down on it, to worry about it and make them fit the crazy box, as you said, that the world is going to do that for them. And maybe that's a little painful, but that's part of growing up. It takes some real bravery, though, because it's easy to say that in a pat way. Sure. But when you have the kid who is, you have a boy who's wearing dresses, you have a kid who is still dressing as Woody when he's nine years old in the school costume parade, you have a kid who is really differently expressing themselves i mean i say this all the time people are always like my kid's so weird and i'm like your kid wears like a mc jagger t-shirt that's you that's not weird that's imposed upon that's cool yeah let's talk about weird like weird is the kid who really is like the girl who wears like the hot dog in the princess parade like everyone's looking at the parent and being like what's wrong with your kid and everyone's looking at the kid and being like, what's wrong with you?

52:59Heidi Grant:Like, it's easy to say, like, let it flourish. But we recognize that it can mean something very uncomfortable for a while. Well, I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not our job to shut it down. Because from almost all kids, this sort of imaginative role play stuff. And it's different, I think, for kids who are on the spectrum and who have that sort of singularity of interest as a sort of, you know, primary feature of their personality. But for most kids, we're talking about like neurotypical kids, even the kids who are into the world play and the maps and the languages and the, you know, leprechauns and the radiators, that starts to go away as they shift from imaginary interactions to peer interactions.

53:39And by the time you're a teenager, this stuff is gone. And so is all, you know, you will look back fondly on your kid's imaginary friend, even though it might seem like, uh, is there something weird about my three-year-old that she won't stop talking about Soren Lawrence? And it does change. It does go away. and you know then there's this nostalgia you have for it but I guess I just mean you don't have to be the one to say you can't wear the hot dog costume you're weird it's too you're too old for that now don't worry about that this yeah sadly self-corrects and that very imaginative kid it's proof of their creativity that will probably come out in them in some way and I think your job is to sort of sort of protect it not from all the consequences of their still wanting to play town when everybody else is talking about, you know, who's dating who.

54:27The world takes care of that, though. You don't have to tamp down on it or worry about it.

54:31Heidi Grant:Yeah, you don't really, even for non-neurotypical kids, I think it's like the basic takeaway is like, you're really not in control of how this turns out. And so your only job is to meet your kid where they are. And then help lead them into connection with other people, but never be like, stop doing that weird thing you're doing and do whatever else everyone else is doing because you'll be happier. That doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so just let it go and help them walk with you. We solved it. We definitely solved this one, guys. So we, as always, want to know what is happening. We don't want to know all the details about the magic wishing stone, but we do want to know in general how imagination is playing out in your house.

55:17Heidi Grant:And you can tell us on our Facebook page, facebook.com forward slash whatfreshhellcast. You could go on Instagram, which is also whatfreshhellcast and send us pictures of the imaginary friends. That'd be cool. Amy, I have a spoiler for you. There's going to be no pictures of the imaginary friends. I could probably see them. Norma Nersher. This was research a go-go. There's so much interesting books and whatever, and I'm going to put it all up on webpressshellpodcast.com. And I'll link to some of it on Twitter too, at WFH Podcast. That's it for us this week, guys. Go enjoy your magic wishing stones.

55:54Heidi Grant:Go frolic. We'll talk to you next time.

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